The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Calendula plant, botanically known as Calendula hybrida and hereinafter referred to by the name ‘Kercaldiva’.
The new Calendula plant is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventors in Cambridge, United Kingdom. The objective of the breeding program is to create new uniform Calendula plants that flower continuously for a long period of time and have good container and landscape performance.
The new Calendula plant originated from a cross-pollination of a proprietary selection of Calendula hybrida identified as code number 11-67-5, not patented, as the female, or seed, parent with a proprietary selection of Calendula hybrida identified as code number 11-67-8, not patented, as the male, or pollen, parent in 2011. The new Calendula plant was discovered and selected by the Inventors as a single flowering plant from within the progeny of the stated cross-pollination in a controlled greenhouse environment in Cambridge, United Kingdom in July, 2012.
Asexual reproduction of the new Calendula plant by vegetative tip cuttings in a controlled greenhouse environment in Cambridge, United Kingdom since August, 2012 has shown that the unique features of this new Calendula plant are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.